Richard III, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen
by Alixtii
Summary: If Valentine had to choose between world peace and her brother, she knew quite well which option she was going to choose.
1. Earth

**Author's Note:** Passages in italics (and some dialogue elsewhere) are taken from the novel by Orson Scott Card. Thanks to frogfarm for the beta.

**_Richard the Third_, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen** _"I can't believe you still believe it."_

"Believe what?"

"The bugger menance. Save the world. Listen, Ender, if the buggers were coming back to get us, they'd be here_. They aren't invading again. We beat them and they're gone."_

"But the videos—"

"It's all a fake. There is_ no war, and they're just screwing around with us."_

"But why?"

"Because as long as people are afraid of the buggers, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this pretty soon, and there'll be a civil war to end all wars. That's_ the menace, Ender, not the buggers."_**ONE: Earth**

_As her correspondence with other politically active citizens grew, she began to learn things, information that simply wasn't available to the general public. Certain military people who corresponded with her dropped hints about things without meaning to, and she and Peter put them together to build up a fascinating and frightening picture._

"They're lying to us."

There just wasn't any other possible explanation. She and Peter had been over all the information twenty different ways, and always it added up to the same conclusion. There weren't any buggers. Maybe there never had been any buggers. It was all a fabrication, a construct designed to produce fear, to create social unity from a lie. Nothing could be trusted anymore. It was as if they were living inside a dystopian novel--she was all ready to pick up a mask and storm Westminster Palace.

"Then they don't really need anyone to fight the buggers," she realized. "They don't actually need Ender."

"They'll still need him to be a commander," Peter answered. "To lead the I.F. troops. It's the price of peace, Val."

But if Valentine had to choose between world peace and her brother, she knew quite well which option she was going to choose.

#

"Valentine! What in the hell did you do?"

Val woke up groggily to her brother standing over her bed, shaking her. "Wha?"

"The Hegemon has been assassinated and the I.F. is in disarray. There's talk of civil war already."

She pulled on a shirt and shorts over the underwear she had been sleeping in while her brother waited impatiently, then followed him to his room, the room he had once shared with Ender. She watched over his shoulder as he worked his computer, bringing up the newsfeeds from a hundred different sources, all saying the same thing: chaos had broken out on planet Earth.

"I don't know what you did, Val, but it sure got people upset."

She didn't even bother to ask him how he was so sure it was her, or to try to deny it. "So what are you going to do now?

Peter frowned. "Get to your desk. I need you to compose another polemic. If we're going to turn this into an opportunity, we're going to need to utilize every ounce of charisma that Demosthenes and Locke possess."

And she had gone back to her desk, and had begun composing the polemic that Peter had asked for. He had her working nonstop the next few days, as the threats of civil war gave way to actual conflict. The Polemarch and the Strategos were at each others throats. Every possible voice calling for moderation was now desperately needed—even the usually abrasive Demosthenes.

Peter had been right, of course. She was responsible for all of this. That night, after Peter had gone to bed, she had gotten up and sent compilations of the evidence they had discovered to several highly-placed individuals in several national governments, including the Warsaw Pact, the United States, and Israel. Tear the wool away from their eyes, make them understand just how the I.F. had been manipulating them.

She hadn't expected their response to be quite so violent.

#

A new Hegemon needed to be appointed, and it wasn't long before the names of both Demosthenes and Locke began to be floated as potential nominees. "It's too soon," Peter had complained. "I'm not ready yet. They'll think I'm too young."

"So what are you going to do?" asked Valentine.

The look on Peter's face was one of steely resolve. "We'll do what we have to do," he said. "Eventually, they'll realize that I'm their only option."

The next day, the news began to leak out onto the nets: Locke and Demosthenes were, in fact, Peter and Valentine Wiggin, and they were children.

#

It took a while for Valentine to get used to seeing her face and name on the front page of the day's newsfeeds, staring up at her from her computer screen. The scandal of Locke's and Demosthenes' true identities had thrust them even further into the spotlight, and now the names of Peter and Valentine Wiggin were on everybody's lips. Meanwhile, the discussions as to the appointment of the new Hegemon continued. Locke and Demosthenes were just children, but who else could it be?

But as long as the names Wiggin and Hegemon were uttered so closely together, no one was able to forget that once Demosthenes and Locke had been considered for the position, and why. That their ideas had been so clear and that their opinions so forceful that the globe had looked to them for guidance.

Meanwhile, Valentine continued her Demosthenes column, only now under her real name. She made no mention of her name and only a passing reference to the rôle of "whomever the planet chooses to serve as Hegemon." Instead, she focused on the rôle of the Warsaw Pact under the now radically unstable Federation, and what actions America would need to take in response. Her columns ran underneath a color faceshot taken for the purpose, and Peter was gradually allowing her to subtly shift Demosthenes' positions closer to her own. In the wake of the scandal, her readership had grown dramatically; now more people were hearing her opinions than ever before.

The only thing was that as the international chaos increased, Valentine began to see that Demonsthenes had been right after all: the Warsaw Pact _was_ a threat. She grudgingly continued Demosthenes' call for preemptive action due to the impossibility of peace.

Now that Peter and Valentine were more than pseudonyms attached to bodies of text, they entered the public eye in other ways. In addition to his more serious correspondence, Peter now received fan mail from fawning teenaged girls across the planet. They would appear on the videofeeds now, being interviewed by political commentators who were well out of their element. Valentine enjoyed running circles around one conservative commentator in particular, making him look all the more foolish for not being able to beat a twelve-year-old girl in an argument.

She would give lectures at nearby universities, explaining things patiently as puzzled undergraduates and mostly-just-as-clueless faculty attempted to challenge her. She would stop at bookstores to sign the published compilations of her columns.

She drew the line when her publisher suggested she put out a musical album.

"Just as long as it doesn't interfere with your schoolwork, dear," was her parents' answer whenever there came a call for a new project or appearance.

Months passed, and the global public grew used to seeing these two children on the news and videofeeds, pontificating on international affairs. They grew used to relying on them to shape their own opinions and thoughts. Policies suggested by Locke and Demosthenes continued to be implemented, because they made sense and because Peter and Valentine argued for them clearly and persuasively. And through all this time, no new Hegemon was named.

At last, a compromise position was reached: _both_ Peter and Valentine would be appointed, as Co-Hegemons. Two children, the reasoning seemed to be, would serve as the equivalent of one full-grown adult. And since the approaches of Locke and Demosthenes were so radically different, perhaps they would have a mediating effect on each other.

Peter was openly disdainful. "Don't they understand the meaning of the word _hegemon_?" That didn't, of course, keep him from accepting the post when it was offered to him and Val.

Peter was fourteen, she was twelve, and now they were being put in charge of the free world.

#

Once the decision had been made, the inauguration was scheduled relatively quickly, and Peter and Valentine settled into their new positions even more immediately. The world had already been without a Hegemon for far too long, and the business of state could not wait for a ceremony in order to be attended to. Still, it seemed as if it was only a blink of an eye before the day itself had arrived.

Their parents were there, of course, standing next to some of the highest-ranking officials on planet Earth. The President of the United States, of course, as well as the heads of state of various other nations. The Strategos and the Hegemony Ministers. The Polemarch was there, too, although he never quite made eye contact with Valentine or Peter.

The ceremony was full of pomp and circumstance and it was everything Valentine could do to keep still, knowing that at any given time at least half of the thousands of cameras which surrounded them were trained on her and her brother. Peter, on the other hand, was inexplicably—and frustratingly—calm. "These seats hurt my ass," he stage-whispered to her about half-way through the President's speech.

At last it was time, and Peter and Valentine rose together. Peter repeated the President's instructions with an easy-sounding confidence.

And then it was her turn. She raised her hand and began to speak, trying desperately to keep her voice even.

"I, Valentine Wiggin, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Hegemon and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Articles of the International Federation."

#

"Do we have to do this?" Valentine complained. It was the third inauguration ball they had been to that night, and she was already getting tired. Not to mention the deskfull of work they still had in front of them, seeing to the needs of the I.F. Besides, she looked ridiculous in an evening gown.

"Hush," Peter said to her under his breath. He picked up a hors d'oeuvres and passed it to her; she took it only reluctantly. "Of course we do. This is a moment of hope, of anticipation. The people now have a leader who will lead them out of the darkness, and it is a time to celebrate. Now go say hello to the Minister of Information."

Valentine obediently made her way to the minister and began to engage in the meaningless pleasantries which seemed _de rigueur_ at these parties. Intellectually, she understood Peter's logic: half of governing was the show of it, inspiring trust in the public and fear in one's enemies. But this was the sort of thing at which Peter was an expert: telling people what they wanted to hear, skillfully manipulating them from right in front of them. Her skill was more with the working with the ideas themselves, _demonstrating_ and _proving_, relying on the light of truth rather than on flattery and deceit. She watched as Peter danced with the daughter of the President. This was a game to him, and a game he loved.

Valentine just felt lonely.

#

It took a surprisingly short time for Major Jacqueline Clarke to become acclimated to having to answer to two barely-teenaged children every day. They were quick, competent, and professional, and frankly Major Clarke didn't care if her boss was a trained monkey if he got the job done well. The world was in a time of crisis, and Major Clarke quickly learned to trust Peter and Valentine to steer the planet Earth out of that crisis.

"Something's up with the Warsaw Pact," Peter said, examining the intelligence she had just brought them. "I mean, beyond the usual. These movements certainly aren't innocent."

"How can you be sure?" asked Valentine, leaning over his shoulder to look herself. "Hmm. I see what you mean."

"They're planning an offensive," Peter said assuredly. "It's subtle, but it's there."

"Well, what do we do?"

Peter frowned. "If they want war, we're going to have to give it to them. Order the Polemarch arrested for treason. If violence breaks out—_when_ violence breaks out—hit them back with everything we've got. A full nuclear tactical strike."

Valentine just looked at him, a shocked expression on her face. "You can't be serious."

Peter Wiggin turned to his sister, gravely. "I've never been more serious in my life, Val."

"The I.F. was founded to _prevent_ nuclear war!"

Peter nodded. "Sometimes one has to destroy the village in order to save it."

#

No one was quite sure how the Russians got their hands on nuclear weapons. There were soldiers loyal to the Polemarch in the I.F., but even Peter hadn't thought they would be crazy enough to pass nukes onto the Warsaw Pact government. Didn't they realize that the I.F.'s monopoly on nuclear weapons was the only thing which prevented an all-out nuclear war?

When the first nuclear missile hit American soil, the answer to that question became obvious. Apparently even Peter had underestimated the potential stupidity of the human species. It was a good thing the buggers didn't actually exist, or else humanity would have been doomed.

The result should have been stalemate. Mutually assured destruction. A continual raising of the stakes until one side or the other blinked, because only a madman would continue staring. The only problem was, Valentine knew Peter wasn't going to be the one to blink.

"We need to get you two evacuated," Major Clarke said, her breath short, as reports of more nuclear strikes began coming in by the hour. "Get you off-planet. It's not safe here."

"Where is it safe?" Valentine noted sarcastically, but she and Peter followed Major Clarke to the helicopter ready to take them to Stumpy Point, from where they would take the first available vehicle off-world.

The first vehicle off-world, it turned out, was taking a crew of Launchies up to Battle School.

At long last, Valentine would get to see her brother.

**TBC. . . .**


	2. Battle School

**TWO: Battle School**

Valentine Wiggin was used to being the youngest person in the room. She moved in the circles of high politics now, after all, a world of adults. And while she had earned the respect of so many of the people with whom she worked, still seldom was she ever able to forget that she was also a twelve-year-old girl.

So being loaded into a spaceship with a group of six-year-boys (with the random token girl thrown in here or there for good measure) was a strangely odd experience. It wasn't often that she got to feel _old_.

And then the engines on the spaceship fired, and Valentine was jolted back in her seat, and waves of nausea washed over her. There was a terrible disorienting moment when down was no longer down. Peter, sitting in the seat next to hers, took her hand in his and gave it a light squeeze.

The rest of the flight, spent in zero-gravity, was relatively uneventful.

#

By the time they arrived at Battle School and were able to get to an ansible, Earth had already destroyed itself. It was a classic nuclear winter scenario: the soot and smoke created by the nuclear detonations had covered the planet almost completely, blocking out the sun and killing most life on the planet.

"It could have been worse," Peter noted. "They could have gotten their hands on a Little Doctor. We should be able to return in a couple of years, see if anyone is still alive."

"What about the three little boys who were left on Earth so that we could have their seats?"

"They were expendable," Peter answered simply. "We aren't."

_Our parents?_ Valentine wanted to ask, but didn't. She already knew the answer.

Peter turned to Major Clarke, who had undergone the flight to Battle School with them in order to oversee their safety. "Did the Strategos make it off Earth?" he asked.

Major Clarke checked the desk, then shook her head. "No, sir. His spacecraft was targeted as it left Earth."

Peter nodded. "Then that leaves us with the burden of command falling squarely on our shoulders. Come on, Val—we have a fleet to run."

"No," said Val, shaking her head. "There's something I have to do first."

#

_Ender slammed his open hand against the wall and shouted. "I don't care about the game anymore!" His voice echoed through the corridor. Boys from other armies came to their doors. He spoke quietly into the silence. "Do you understand that?" And he whispered. "The game is over."_

He walked back to his room alone. He had only been there for a few minutes when someone knocked on his door.

"Go away," he said softly. Whoever was knocking didn't hear him or didn't care. Finally Ender said to come in.

It was Valentine. He didn't know how or why, but it didn't matter. It was her. "Hello, Ender," she said.

He didn't laugh or smile or wave or any of the other things he might have done if he were younger and less weary. He simply looked at her, never letting his eyes leave her face, and he knew that she understood that he was glad to see her.

"You're bigger than I remembered," she said.

"You too," he answered. She would be—what? Twelve? Thirteen, now? Already her body had changed, taken on the graceful curves of womanhood. "I also remembered that you were beautiful."

"Memory does play tricks on us," she said.

Memory. So many memories, most of which he had forced himself not to remember while at Battle School; they were too painful. Getting into that car that had waited silently in the corridor, ready to take him to the first step on his way to Battle School, and hearing Valentine's anguished cry: _Come back to me! I love you forever!_

"No," he said. "Your face is the same." He wasn't sure he remembered what _beautiful_ meant anymore.

#

"Miss Wiggin, Mr. Wiggin," Colonel Graff greeted the two without warmth as they entered his office. "We meet again—although this time, I suppose, our positions are reversed. I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances."

"I can think of no circumstances, Colonel Graff," Valentine said, "under which I would be happy to meet you. I've just been to see Ender."

"And you found him well, I trust."

"You bastard," Val said, her eyes narrowing. "You broke him. Did you enjoy running him into the ground?"

"Madame Hegemon," Graff said. He spoke slowly, clearly carefully choosing his words as he went. "We were preparing for war—until the actions of you and your brother prematurely brought that war onto us and, in your own way, decisively ended it. Ender was to fight in that that war. We did what we considered necessary."

"And what about what was _right_?" Valentine asked.

"Some things get sacrificed to the exigencies of war. I did what I thought best. Trust me to do my job, please, and I'll let you do yours in equal peace."

Valentine crossed her arms. "We are not accustomed to being treated like children, Colonel."

"Believe me," Graff said, "neither am I in the habit of underestimating children. If I were, I would not have done what I did. But that does not change the fact that you are, indeed, a little girl, Madame Hegemon."

"And you—" Valentine stood simmering for a moment, then lost her temper. "You're just—stupid and fat!" She walked out of the room in a huff.

Peter turned to Graff. "Don't worry about her," he said. "She can be a little idealistic."

"And yet she speaks truth," Graff noted. "I am both stupid—at least in comparison to her and yourself—and fat. And if you do not mind, Mr. Hegemon, I would rather just as well _not_ have your moral approval."

#

Valentine was taking a shower in the Officer's Showers when Peter walked in, a towel wrapped around his waist. "What was that little tantrum about?" he asked as he turned on the showerhead next to hers and let it run.

There was nowhere to escape to, naked and wet and with her hair full of shampoo, so she had to answer his question. "You didn't see Ender," she informed her brother. "He was so . . . out of it. As if they had stolen his will to live."

"Maybe Graff is right," he said, hanging up his tower and stepping under the stream of hot water. "Sometimes war requires things that aren't nice, but are nonetheless necessary."

"The imaginary war against the buggers?"

"No, the real war—the one we made happen too soon. Maybe if we hadn't intervened, Graff would have been able to train Ender into becoming the commander he needed, able to do something with the Warsaw Pact. Maybe Earth wouldn't have been destroyed."

_We_, he said, but he meant Valentine. He was blaming her for the destruction of Earth, the death of their parents. "Well, if this is who we've become, maybe Earth deserved to be destroyed," she said. "Maybe there _should_ have been buggers. I'm not sure that type of society deserves to exist."

Peter looked at her thoughtfully. "That's pretty close to treason, little sister."

Val laughed darkly. "We're the Hegemons, and Earth is destroyed. Who's going to press charges?"

Finally having washed all the shampoo out of her hair, Valentine turned off the water of her shower. Stupid coed showers, she thought as she pulled her towel around herself.

Peter must have known what she was thinking, for he made a show of leering suggestively as she left. "Courtesy of women's liberation, Val."

#

Valentine noticed that lately Peter was spending a lot of time with Petra Arkanian, the Armenian girl who commanded Phoenix Army. Understandable, she supposed. Peter was fifteen years old now, after all, and the only people on Battle School their ages were the students.

But Val also noticed how Petra was moving more slowly of late, and would wince sometimes when she twisted a certain way. How she was sporting bruises that Val knew she hadn't gotten in the Battle Room.

"I don't see how what Petra and I do is any of your business, Val," Peter told her when she confronted him.

"She's a little girl," argued Valentine.

"Have you looked into a mirror lately?" asked Peter. "You're just a little girl, too, just as young as she is. And I'm just a boy—who happens to be in command of the International Fleet. And she's the only girl who's worth a shit around here, present company excepted. _You_ volunteering to be my fuckbuddy, Sis?"

She had learned long ago how to ignore Peter's vulgarity. "But you don't have to break her like that." _Like they did Ender_, she didn't say. "You don't have to hurt her."

Peter sneered. "After all these years, you still don't know me, do you Val? Don't understand what I do or don't have to do."

#

Going to Petra didn't work any better. She seemed to have the same opinion as Peter, worded even less delicately: what the two of them did together was none of her damned business. Understood?

"But why?" Val asked. "Why do you let him—"

Petra cut her off. "I still want to go to Command School," she said, "and be in the fleet afterwards. I'll be able to advance _real_ far if I make an enemy of the Hegemon, neh?" She laughed, derisively.

"You deserve better," Valentine insisted. "You deserve a _friend_."

Petra looked at Valentine with a bemused look on her face. "This is Battle School," she said at last. "There are no friends here."

And Val looked into Petra's eyes. The girl believed it, Val realized. She was yet another one of Graff's casualties, broken and damaged by being forced to play that stupid game, continually denied even the least bit of compassion until she had finally forgotten what it had meant to feel. And before Valentine even knew what she was doing, she kissed her.

Petra, for whatever reason, kissed her back.

#

Next time he saw her, Peter was triumphant. He already knew, of course—whatever it was, Peter always knew. "No wonder you were so interested in what Petra and I did together. Probably just wanted to get in on the action yourself."

He looked thoughtful. "Was that it?" he asked. "Just wanted to fuck her yourself? Well, I don't mind sharing. You can have her too. Hell, you can join in with us if you want—but then you have to play by _our_ rules."

"I didn't—" Val broke off. That wasn't the point. "Peter, she's a _human being_."

Peter nodded. "That's your problem, Valentine. Always afraid to hurt another human being. Well, that's what human beings do—we hurt other human beings. Just by living, by breathing, by not being good enough or by being too good. We can't help it.

"And some people like to be hurt. You should understand that well enough—you go for it enough yourself. Oh, suffering Valentine, always so giving of herself. You get off on it, don't you? Why else would you have stayed with me so long?"

"I love you, Peter," Val said. "Ender loves you. You're our _brother_."

Peter only stared back and didn't say anything, and Valentine began to cry. Maybe Petra was right, after all.

**Fin**


End file.
